The Club Holiday Tignes 26 Feb - 5 March 2022

After having had to defer our skiing in Les Arcs in 2021, Diana looked for something that wouldn’t cost too much more in 2022, and she found what looked like a good deal with Crystal in Tignes Le Lac. As usual we had people with a wide range of ski experiences on the holiday, and our group mingled as ever and joined with different people to ski on different days, according to routes planned, levels of energy, or planned lunch venues! We also tried something new with a number of us booking up for Off Piste ‘Legends’ (ie tailored to those no longer in their 20s or 30s but who still very much want to develop) courses, with Snoworks.

The great bits - It was fantastic to be back skiing on snow again. The weather was perfect - sunny with blue skies all week, but happily, not warm enough to affect the snow at all. Despite Tignes and Val D’Isere having had no new significant snowfall since Christmas time, both resorts had looked after their slopes well, so the skiing was good everywhere for the week. We were very much welcomed in Tignes. The good exchange rate meant that we could all enjoy the mountain views and ambiance at lunch and for drinks. Despite the Covid restrictions still being in force in France at the time, we were only asked very occasionally to show covid passes – and this was sometimes when sitting outside!

The Off Piste courses were at 2 levels - those wanting an Introduction to Off Piste were in a group (together with a couple of non-club skiers to make up numbers) for 5 half days skiing developing their skills and confidence in off piste areas around the 2 resorts. Those more experienced in Off Piste skiing signed up for 5 whole days to cover off piste routes around the resorts and both groups skied some fresh snow in the week and skied slopes that challenged them as the Snoworks instructors knew the area and found the best off piste available.

There were a couple of not so good things which affected us– staff shortages created havoc for Birmingham and Bristol airports, long before the media reported problems; our flights were delayed for us to get to the planes. One person’s luggage failed to arrive, so although he was assured several times it would arrive, he had to borrow all ski kit for the whole week. When he returned back, his luggage had just gone out to Chambery, a week late!

Also, although Hotel Tignes 2100, looked stylish and it was close to the main ski lifts in Tignes Le Lac, there were problems - the rooms were tiny; the corner ensuites were only partitioned from the small bedroom space by glass on the 2 sides, with a curtain covering one wall only and most of the shower doors didn’t shut properly, so water flowed into the bedrooms. Plus, the lounge had exceptionally low hanging stag horn chandeliers, which despite being plastic caused several head injuries (luckily only minor!) both in the mornings when getting ski boots on to get out, and after après drinks after the day’s skiing. The hotel dining room was too small for all the guests, so dinner times had to be booked at breakfast, and this sadly cramped our usual happy styles of all mingling at each meal to socialise.

Diana, as always, worked extremely hard to try to sort problems with Crystal, especially departure details for us all, but luckily hotel staff helped her and us out. After all our problems returning from Ischgl on our last Club holiday at the start of the pandemic, we were pleased that this year we did all get home (some eventually) with no Covid crises seriously impacting our departures this time. So many thanks to Diana for all her work, and we are now looking forward to next year’s Club holiday to Obergurgl.